It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said 'Bother!' and 'O blow!' and also 'Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat.

------------ Kenneth Grahame

Sunday, May 05, 2013

Version of Repose

I clasp my hands, feel the blood knocking
at the roots of my interlaced fingers. Dawn
is still far off: the ropes cast by the summer stars
barely drawing yet. The eyes that will see morning
are not these.

And not these glass marbles, glancing into mine --
quick, opaque, inquiring; pupils wide as death --
and the deft turn, the tufted ears describing
a parabola that hangs a moment in the air --

not these, either. She is gone
before her tail has quite begun.

The old prayers come comfortably,
and the mind settles, the precipitate
of thought coming gradually to rest,
river-silt homing in the lake bottom;
old staggered ambitions and regrets --

what is wished for -- what is dreaded --
drifting down, through the water,
to a dim, rippled version of repose